The present invention relates to an extrusion apparatus that includes an extruder that extrudes a light metal (e.g., aluminum, aluminum alloy, magnesium, and magnesium alloy), and accessory equipment.
An extrusion apparatus used for an aluminum alloy and the like is designed to preheat a cylindrical billet to a given temperature, introduce the billet into a container, and extrude the billet using an extruder (direct extruder or indirect extruder) to produce an extruded material.
The resulting extruded material is advanced along a run-out table.
Since the extruded material has been heated to a high temperature, a cooling table for cooling the extruded material is provided to the side of the run-out table.
Since the extruded material has been warped or distorted, for example, it is necessary to subject the extruded material to stretch leveling.
Therefore, a stretcher and a storage table are provided to the side of the cooling table.
The extruded material that has been subjected to stretch leveling is cut to have a given length using a cutting table provided to the side of the storage table, and placed on a rack.
As described above, a known extrusion apparatus includes an extruder and handling equipment (accessory equipment), and has a large size.
JP-A-10-277635 discloses an extrusion apparatus in which an extruder, a cooling device, a straightening device, and a sizing device are sequentially disposed in series so that the size of handling equipment is reduced.
However, the straightening device disclosed in JP-A-10-277635 compulsorily feeds the extruded material to a straightening roller using a drive roller, and does not subject the extruded material to stretch leveling.